F.B.I. Undertakes Conspiracy Inquiry In Clinic Violence

By DAVID JOHNSTON,

Published: August 4, 1994

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3—
Setting aside a longstanding reluctance to involve itself in cases of abortion-related violence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun an inquiry into accusations that the use of force against women's clinics and their doctors is the work of a conspiracy by anti-abortion militants.

A confidential teletype sent to all 56 F.B.I. field offices on Saturday evening said the bureau had information indicating that about half a dozen anti-abortion figures might be posing "a conspiracy that endeavors to achieve political or social change through activities that involve force or violence."

The message, which said this information had been "volunteered" by abortion rights groups, was issued one day after the fatal shooting of an abortion doctor and his security escort outside a clinic in Pensacola, Fla.

The teletype listed well-known anti-abortion militants including the Rev. David C. Trosch, Michael Bray, C. Roy McMillan, Matthew Trewhella, David Crane and Donald Spitz. All of them signed a "justifiable homicide" declaration, recently circulated among anti-abortion extremists, that supported the killing of doctors who perform abortions.

In a telephone interview from Mobile, Ala., Father Trosch, a Roman Catholic priest whom the church has suspended because of his advocacy of lethal force against abortion doctors, denied any conspiracy.

"The pro-aborts have been presenting this view since the killing of Dr. Gunn," said Father Trosch, referring to Dr. David Gunn, an abortion provider who was shot to death outside another Pensacola clinic in March 1993. "There is absolutely no conspiracy by anyone. I'm sure of it."

Like Father Trosch, other anti-abortion militants have dismissed the notion that a series of shootings and bombings at abortion clinics since the mid-1980's are a result of any national conspiracy. Pressure From Justice Dept.

The teletype set off the first full Government inquiry of accusations by abortion rights leaders that an organized campaign of terror has long been under way at the nation's abortion clinics.

The inquiry was brought on by pressure from the Justice Department, the F.B.I.'s parent, whose senior leaders, including Attorney General Janet Reno, are unequivocal supporters of abortion rights.

On Friday about 5 P.M., less than 10 hours after the killing of Dr. John B. Britton and his security escort, James H. Barrett, outside the Pensacola Ladies Center, Ms. Reno spoke with Louis J. Freeh, the F.B.I. Director. Mr. Freeh then set the investigation in motion, said one law-enforcement official, who maintained that despite misgivings of some F.B.I. managers, the Director had been eager to take on what promised to be a high-profile inquiry important to the Clinton Administration.

In a series of intensive discussions that continued into Saturday, Federal agents met with representatives of abortions rights groups like the Feminist Majority, the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation. Drawing on those groups' years of encounters with anti-abortion demonstrators, the agents compiled a profile of violence to guide their inquiry.

"We believe there is a nationwide conspiracy," Kim A. Gandy, executive vice president of the National Organization for Women, said in an interview today. "The Justice Department and the F.B.I. do not have a handle on it yet. They don't know the extent of the problem." Reluctance Within the Bureau

Notwithstanding Director Freeh's reported eagerness to take it on, the investigation was an uncomfortable step for many of the bureau's senior managers. Even as the most militant elements of the anti-abortion movement grew more violent, these officials had been wary of involving the bureau, for fear that it would somehow be drawn into the broader ideological clash between mainstream anti-abortion groups and abortion rights advocates.

Some of these officials feel that the line between the anti-abortion movement's violent elements and its militant but nonetheless nonviolent groups can easily be blurred. Given that, these managers say, they cannot be certain that with the benefit of hindsight, a future Administration opposed to abortion will not accuse them of crossing the line from investigation of a criminal conspiracy to surveillance of legitimate political activity.

Some top managers at the F.B.I. now were junior agents back in the late 1960's and the 1970's, when the bureau was shaken by disclosures that its agents had illegally subverted antiwar groups and civil rights advocates. More recently, in the mid-1980's, the bureau was rocked anew by similar disclosures involving its antiterrorism inquiries into the Committee in Solidarity With the People of El Salvador, an organization sympathetic to leftist Salvadoran guerrillas. Domestic-Terrorism Inquiry

The current investigation, a 90-day preliminary inquiry to determine whether there is cause for a full-scale criminal investigation, is being conducted under the Attorney General's domestic-terrorism guidelines. Those guidelines authorize the use of investigative tools like surveillance and interviews but limit the use of intrusive undercover tactics like wiretapping and property searches.

The legal underpinning for a Federal investigation was strengthened in May, when President Clinton signed into law a measure that makes it a Federal crime to block access to an abortion clinic or to use force or threats against employees or patients there.

Paul J. Hill, now charged with murder in the slaying of Dr. Britton and Mr. Barrett last Friday, had been a subject of a Federal investigation under the new law because of his protest activities outside Pensacola clinics. Justice Department officials have not fully explained the decision of Federal prosecutors in Florida and their superiors in Washington to drop that case for lack of evidence.

Federal law-enforcement officials said today that they had not yet determined whether now to charge Mr. Hill under the new law, which carries maxium punishment of life in prison for abortion-related violence that results in death. Some Federal prosecutors are pressing to go ahead with such a case as a demonstration of the law's effectiveness. Any such decision would be a departure from the usual Federal practice of waiting until a local prosecution is completed before determining whether to bring Government charges.

After the killing of Dr. Gunn last year, Ms. Reno promised that the Justice Department would determine whether the Government could use existing Federal conspiracy statutes, like those used against the Mafia, in cases involving anti-abortion extremists. Law-enforcement officials say she was disturbed after the shootings last Friday to learn how little had actually been done to fulfill that earlier promise.

Photo: While mourners gathered inside a church in Fernandina Beach, Fla., yesterday for the funeral of Dr. John B. Britton, the abortion provider shot to death in Pensacola last week, a group of abortion opponents, one of them only 8 years old, demonstrated outside. (David Mills/The Ledger) (pg. A14)